NowITWorks.net

Slashdot has reported that IBM is in the process of building a new supercomputer – aptly named ‘Sequoia’ - to be used by the United States government.  IBM claims it will be the most powerful supercomputer ever, and “will outshine every single current system in the Top 500 supercomputer rankings combined in terms of raw computing power.”

The monstrous computer will take up 96 racks, and fully make use of 1.6 million processors.  Mostly, it will be used for environmental purposes, ranging from nuclear waste disposal to climate change and energy conservation.

Is your processor 64-bit capable? With SecurAble, you can find out in about 2 seconds.

According to its website, “SecurAble probes the system’s processor to determine the presence, absence and operational status of three modern processor features:

• 64-bit instruction extensions,
• Hardware support for detecting and preventing
  the execution of code in program data areas, … and
• Hardware support for system resource “virtualization.”

Here is the site to download -  http://www.grc.com/securable.htm

It also goes in-depth about Hardware DEP – fun stuff!

If you have a Windows Mobile device, chances are you are less than happy with the mobile browsing experience that IE gives you. It’s pretty bad – there is no Flash Player, pictures take forever to upload (if you can see them at all), and did I mention how sl-ow it is? Well fret no more!

Skyfire has just released their new beta browser and I think I’m in love. It’s fantastic – you can watch videos, listen to music, check your social networking sites or whatever you need from the internet that you couldn’t previously get on your phone. No longer is the IPhone the lone purveyor of  YouTube on the go! No longer is Active X and Flash the bane of your mobile experience!

If you have a Windows or Symbian (Nokia) phone, you owe it to yourself to download this as soon as you have a chance.

http://www.skyfire.com/

I give this 4 out of 4 lightsabers.

(Image source: Wikipedia Lightsaber Collection)

I’m not sure what compelled me to share this topic today, maybe it’s the excessive amount of drinking that will likely happen tomorrow, in observance of New Years Eve or maybe it’s because I’ve already warned you about mixing alcohol and technology.

Either way, Apple has released some new applications for the iPhone for those who can’t seem to measure their own level of drunkenness. You can use the apps to determine how drunk you are (based on height and weight), take sobriety tests on the screen, including typing the alphabet backwards in less than 45 seconds or use the countdown clock to find out when you’ll be sober again.

Click here to see the review of these applications that you can download to your iPhone, such as; R U Drunk and Drunkulator. Each one costs between $1-$2.

Before you get all excited dreaming up ways to beat the system, please note that these applications are mostly for entertainment purposes and this subsequent blog post and linked review are not endorsements for driving under the influence at any time.

(Source: Tech News World)

I was tooling around this weekend trying to find a media center that can play Divx, Xvid, H.264, .MKV, etc  video files and I finally found a winner. Windows Media Center does not like any of these formats, though Divx and Xvid will be available with Windows 7 edition.

The XBMC Media Center is an Open source little bit of wonder. It comes in a Windows, Linux, or Mac client and can do pretty much everything you would wish for out of an open source media center. (BluRay support is not quite there yet)

http://xbmc.org/

It’s an 80 meg exe, and pretty lightweight. It ran great on my wife’s old laptop, and streams music and video from other networked devices like a champ. You can also use a Windows Media Center Remote and Transceiver, though it takes a good amount of work.

A recent piece of handy-dandy free software I recently found is Unlocker. It installs an explorer extension that will allow you to see which processes have hooks into the file you are trying to change or delete and can kill them, allowing you to delete or change said file. If after that you cannot delete the file, you can schedule an action on next boot. This is not portable, and must be installed. It is a very lightweight application and I suggest un-checking everything except “Explorer Assistant” when installing so you get the right click context.

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GMail Backup is a free utility you can use to archive your GMail account to your local computer using GMail IMAP support. You can even use it to restore your GMail messages in the event of loss.

The software is available cross-platform, so Windows users can take advantage of it as well as MacOS and Linux users. Unfortunately, only the Windows version uses a graphical user interface (GUI), whereas the MacOS and Linux versions are command line only.

The program saves the messages in Microsoft’s .EML format, which can allow you to browse them offline. You can even upload the archive to another GMail account, making it simple to move your mail from one account to another.

Link: Gmail Backup

It could be a first date, a blind date or dinner at your grandparents – sometimes you just need a way out. Well, with a little bit of foresight and 99 cents, you can save yourself.

Magic Tap is available with your iPhone and is sold for 99 cents at the Apple App Store. You can program the time of the call, who it is coming from, a new background, ring tone – whatever you feel is necessary to customize your “out”.

Making this deal even sweeter, no air time charges will apply to these faux calls and 10 cents from each call will be donated to an unspecified charity.

When it comes to protecting yourself, you might not realize just how useful your cell phone could be to you. There is a new free service available called My Mobile Witness, which allows you to store time-stamped pictures and texts for free. If you are in a situation or around people who make you uneasy, snap a quick picture or text a brief message. This is stored in a vault that police would have access to, if something should happen to you.

You will be able to let the threatening individual know that you have a record of their face (or car, etc) and the police will be able to track them down.  Messages cannot be retrieved or erased, if that person should get a hold of your phone.

The creators of this service, Scott Bullens and Marcus Anthony, developed it to keep the agents from their real estate firm safe. Each agent had to take a picture of the client they were meeting and send it back to the office.

It has been cautioned that this service is not a replacement for 911.

For more information on how this service works – click here.

Boy, do I feel old. Apparently “drunk dialing” is a term of the past and has been replaced by the phenomenon called “drunk emailing”. But have no fear, Google has recently developed a tool to keep those embarrassing emails to a minimum.

It’s called Mail Goggles – a Gmail add-on that makes it difficult for you to send email during certain times (i.e. 3:00am on a Saturday). Located in the “Labs” tab in your Gmail account, you will be required to answer a series of math problems before the message can be sent. You also have the ability to determine how hard those math questions are. Don’t make them too easy or the system won’t work and don’t make them too hard or you won’t be able to answer them when you are sober.

Remember to set your time constraints and math problems when you are clear headed and in possession of the patience and temperament of a rational person.

So, take a moment to thank Google for preventing that email to be your boss about how under appreciated you are or to your ex just to let them know what they are missing. Have fun this weekend and remember if Google says “Water and bed for you”, it’s probably best to put down the calculator and follow that advice.